Nix
Legacy Name: Nix

The sun rose quietly over my sea. She hid shyly behind a large group of clouds for most of the early morning. I needed whatever warmth she could give me, but it was never enough.

I have not eaten in many years, so many in fact, that the taste of a human spirit is but a foggy memory, fading gently away into the folds of my mind. I would prefer to keep it that way. Because of this, however, I am now cold and weak. I am desperate to find the warmth, the energy, I need. But I will never again commit the sin of my kind, I do not believe I could stand to eat a human once more.

In the late afternoon, I rose from the water. My hair grew long and white - my hands became hooves. I headed westward along the beach, where the sands were warmer. It was here I rested my body, fatigued from the transition, until the warmth left the sands.

I awoke to the sad song of a loon, and the gentle humming of a maiden, far away from me. I watched her as the moon draped over her silhouette, her hands pulling a shawl tight around her shoulders and her bare feet lingering on the cold ocean's edge. A gentle breeze carried her scent to me - floral and salty. Suddenly, memories jumped into my mind where her scent once was.

I was young, and it seems so long ago; the leader of our clan had returned with what was once a vibrant young man. His jaw and shoulders were broad, and his auburn hair floated like ribbons beneath the water. He had recently married and his heart was full of hope. It was enough to fuel us all. His spirit tasted the way honeysuckle smells: heavy, sweet, and creamy. For a moment I wondered what this woman's spirit would taste like. Would it be bitter, like all the sadness I've tasted? Or is she awake because love is keeping her awake? Does she taste of honeysuckles? No. I vowed to remove that desire from myself. I will not allow myself to consume a human again. The brook clan was comprised entirely of selfish, feasting individuals. It sickens me. Did any of them know what giving tasted like? Will I ever know?

She caught me looking at her, or through her, perhaps, and her eyes brought my attention back to the present. I could not see the color, but I could see the depth. The reflection of the moon was sucked deep within her irises, and she stared at me. I stood from my place in the sands, but did not realize I had done so until I was already walking towards her. Once I reached her, I realized her spirit smelled entirely different from what I once thought. She was different, but in a way I did not understand. She smelled like milk and pond water, like water lilies and motherhood, but she also smelled of damp embers. I saw her eyes fixated upon my dripping mane. I do not know how long her company was mingled with mine upon the beach, but I felt as if she knew I should be dry by now. Human words slipped from my equine mouth as I greeted her. For the first time in my life I felt like I had done something wrong because of this, like I had done too much, but she did not even blink. She knew what I was, and yet she stayed. She held out her hand and placed it between my eyes - it felt hot. It was warmth, it was a feverish energy, but it hurt me? I was being hurt? I stepped away from her, and realized it was not her doing, but a reaction all my own. She looked at me confused. I shook my head, no - I was the one confused. There was something to this woman.

She walked away from me and down the beach. I followed and she didn't object. We walked for some time, until her trail lead us to a small home tucked between the woods and the shore. A lantern was in the window. I stood, following her no more as she opened the door, her image vanishing behind it. I stood where I was, for what felt like years, staring at the lantern. Until my legs moved and I was staring into the house's window, and at the woman. Her face was between the hands of a larger, balding man with a scraggly beard, long hair, and hooded eyes. He was yelling at her, and she was looking at an infant in a bassinet. He spat and she blinked but never looked at him, and never tried to get away. She just stared and stared at the baby. The baby cried and she did nothing. The man kicked the bassinet and the crying became louder.

I could hear his boots heavily stomping against the floors as he stormed from the small house.

I tried to quickly hide behind the house, but he saw me regardless and shouted at me.

"Ge'out! Shoo!"

Yet he never questioned my presence. Humans are so strange.

It was not until the moon had performed a full cycle that I saw the woman again. It was dawn, before most of the world had awoken, and she was laying on the beach, arm outstretched into the water. My body was in the sea, but I waded towards her, my human-like form still showing and vulnerable. As I was waist deep, and just feet from the shore, she sat up, and spoke to me.

"You are a nix." There was no question in her voice, and no fear. I nodded at her.

"Are you going to eat me?"

"No," I said, my stomach aching and churning.

"Why," She sounded disappointed.

"I've given up on that. It is not for me."

"But you have to eat..." this time, there was more of a question.

"I'm trying to find a replacement for humans."

She scoffed.

"I followed you home, the night we met..."

"I know," she said, interrupting me.

"Was that your husband?"

Her eyes squinted. "Yes."

"And your child?"

Her facial expression changed slightly, softening, "yes."

"Why is he so mean to you?"

"Because he cannot own me... I leave him for the water every chance I get."

"But why do you seek solace in the sea?"

"It was once my home, my true husband, my true love, still swims these waters, but I am earth bound. Because of him." Her voice grew cold when she spoke of her human husband. "He burned my skin and I can never return. I will never see my love again."

I ignorantly looked over every inch of her body for a trace of burn marks, but saw none. She explained no further. She ran a hand through the sand, grasping it, then let it slowly fall.

"I need to make my children breakfast." She said, and stood, walking home. I stayed in the water.

It was another four months before I spoke with her again. I watched her though, usually nightly. And sometimes again in the mornings. I watched her husband leave on his fishing boat at dawn. I watched her children build sand castles at the beach while she watched them, but not really. She only watched the water. Then one evening, I was rising from the sea with the plans of watching her again, but I saw her instead, sitting there on the shore, with her face in her hands. At first I thought shadows were covering her body, but there were no trees around, and the moon was not full to cast any shadows. When she took her hands away to look at me, I knew I had been mistaken. Her left eye swollen shut, and her bottom lip bruised, she said nothing.

"The fisherman," I said, "he did this?" She nodded. I suddenly felt very protective of her, and furious. I have not eaten in years, I explained to myself, that is the reason my emotions are so frivolous.

No. This is different. This woman is different.

"I'm sorry." I had never said those words before. They felt strange, and tasted strange; they were almost sweet, yet pithy.

She stared at me, as she does, and tried to smile, but her lip cracked and bled. We said no more that night, but I stayed with her until she went home in the very early morning.

At dawn the next day, I again watch her husband climb into his fishing boat with his nets and his crates and his bloody knuckles. This time though, I followed him, quietly and carefully. He rowed his way out into the sea slowly, but reached his destination several knots from the shore. All day I watched him drop his crates and cast his nets. Then I watched him pull them back in, with maybe a single crab, and perhaps a few fish. We did this, he casting, I watching, until the twilight came - the hour when the sea can play tricks on you. Finally, he grappled with his net one last time, bending over his boat, tugging at the mesh. It was then I swam under his boat from the other side, grabbed his neck as he bent over, and pulled his heavy mass into the water. Down I went with him, and a struggle it was, for he was twice my size. Soon though, he lost his fight. I held him deep within the sea, his blood shot eyes staring at me, angry and confused. Then, the furrow in his brow softened, his taught lips slowly unwinding. And as he slipped away, I saw it all:

He was a young boy and his father was drunk. His mother was apathetic. A fist flew at him; it was so real I flinched. I tasted it. I tasted his fear of his father. Greasy, it left a film on my teeth and burnt my tongue. He was a young man now, starting his fishing career. He pulls his boat in off the shore, it is the evening. He walks into a home, presumably his home, and a woman and man are in the corner, kissing zealously. I tasted his anger and jealousy, like vinegar, and burned like whiskey when swallowed. Now he is older, alone, and desperate. He finds a seal skin on the rocks by the sea. He steals it. The woman I know is now in his bed. Later I watch him burn the seal's skin. I taste his need for control, meaty and sticky. Yet there is something else? An oily regret. It floats in the water around him.

Now, in a haze, I see the silver-haired woman I know. She is in the kitchen, her two young girls at her side. They are making cookies. The woman's hair is long and her skin is clean. The air tastes... different... like lavender and vanilla. This must be what giving tastes like.